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THE RETURN OF MANDELSON

This confirms every 'negative' in the 'Westminster Way' that denies any semblance of democracy to the British people.

Harry Potter can't handle this; we need St George.

Harry Potter? Oh ha ha ha Barrie!
I think the government are just trying to get some of the "old" cabinet back from the feel good years of "Cool Brittania."

Indeed, the totally unexpected surprise of Gordon Brown’s cabinet reshuffle is the return of Peter Mandelson. I had always thought he had been forced from UK government by the machinations of Brown’s acolytes. He was, I thought, a non-person in Gordon’s eyes.

So what does his return signal?

The most important practical fact is that, with Blair gone, he will be just about the only heavyweight strategist in the government which has struggled to find a 'vision'. After all he was, together with Tony Blair, the true creator of New Labour. My friends who worked with him were immensely impressed by the fact that he – in private debate with Blair – then really did look 10-20 years ahead. It was probably his insights, and resulting vision, that kept New Labour going, and still popular, for more than a decade. I, for one, believe his return will massively strengthen Labour’s strategic planning. But he is, as far as I am aware, a still unrestricted Blairite; which is what makes the move so extraordinary.

With his experience gained as an EU Commissioner. it is also true - as the spin would have us believe – he certainly is one of the few who understand global markets; and – again - Brown surely needs someone of his calibre in this role.

But, I suspect, this is however a move made by Brown from weakness. He needs a rapprochement with the Blairites who are conspiring against him, and Margaret Beckett’s reappearance may also signal this.

Above all, I await developments in strategy, where previously Gordon Brown has seemed not just indecisive but totally lost.

1. Mandelson is the only credible electable labour leader. So it was always logical he came back. If he survives this job he'll end up at the Treasury or Foreign Office?

2. Merv gives up his vestal virgin stance and changes the loan rules. But why are interest rates so high? Inflation is easier to cure than deflation. Its much harder to make jobs than slow them down? Our rates should be 2%.

3. opinion seems to be moving to bailout now likely to be bailout-part 1. its not certain it will unfreeze confidence and unlock liquidity.

Given that the Broon "government" are a bunch of Bilderberg stooges, I suspect that the Bilderbergers have told Broon to bring Mandelson back as an EU "inside man" to ensure an effective takeover of britain by the EU.

Where is the EU referendum we were promised?

That'll end their treacherous games - and they know it.

I suspect Mandy's back to sell us a "great deal" to help UK banks, then sell that to the EU. Can you ask an expert about this?

Forget the revolt inside Labour, he's gunna spin to stop the revolt by the working classes.

If I recall correctly there was a very funny piece of film where Mandelson was being interviewed and said:

"European Commissioner? Oh I don't know where you got that from?"

and his interviewer responded:

"I got it from you!".

Are we to be treated to something similar now he returns?

I was delighted to read the report:
"A Greater Manchester police officer has been forced to resign after he was seen wearing a British National Party (BNP) badge at a football match."

I am delighted the police forced him to resign but should there perhaps in the future be a penalty? Possibly only a fine as the prisons are full.

I am in the minority but I think we should have a penalty for holocaust deniers as well. These perpetrators know very well it did happen.

I am still not clear as to whether the US bailout is the cure or a short term remedy until the CDS and other derivatives run us down in a few years?

BROWNS SEARCH FOR ESSENCE OF BLAIR

Little Boy Brown watched the Blair magic with a gnawing envy - and it looked so easy.
Having threatened to pull the temple down on them both, he got 'his turn'. But though he aped Blair he was NOT Blair, and was bewildered at his lack of success. Now it seems he has told himself it was not the hated Blair, in person, who achieved all that adulation, but what the (less hated) Mandelson had Svengalied in Blair. As the strains of 'Things Can Only Get Better' fade away, I think I can hear: 'The Nearness of You' striking up, as Born Again Labour's next anthem.

thegangofone (#7) "I was delighted to read the report:
"A Greater Manchester police officer has been forced to resign after he was seen wearing a British National Party (BNP) badge at a football match."

I am delighted the police forced him to resign but should there perhaps in the future be a penalty? Possibly only a fine as the prisons are full.

I am in the minority but I think we should have a penalty for holocaust deniers as well. These perpetrators know very well it did happen."

It's a point of view I guess. Which sort of one-party state did you have in mind though? On your equally interesting CJS reform, do you have a clear, forensically based, i.e evidence driven, statutory definition of 'denial' in mind, or do you think special powers (privatised, or devolved to the Third Sector perhaps?) could be granted where agents could fine people on the spot (a bit like a perhaps?) for not getting the correct answer when asked if they're 'believers'?

Are the Newsnight team going to remind everyone of Mandelson's sleazy past? Have you ever investigated exactly why he wasn't prosecuted for lying on his mortgage application form - you can be sure that anyone else would have been. Or is the program going to be usual ZanuLabour love in as usual?

"According to Tom Bower, Mandelson "frequently screamed" down his mobile to Brown: "I love you, but I can destroy you." (Gordon Brown: Prime Minister by Tom Bower, Harper Perenniel, 2007, page 152)"

[Some] politicians eh? ?

A little dicky bird has just informed me of something "unpaid invoice" related, that is a direct consequence of the credit crunch.
The high street/mall chains all pay their rents to landlords, such as Landsecurities who also run a number of government accomodation contracts, of shopping centres on a quarterly basis. Convention has it that the banks lend these chains the money for the quarter commencing 1/10 and, are repaid on 1/1. This year, the banks have refused to do this. Consequently, the chains have been unable to pay their rents!
In addition, the chains have got together and told their landlords that they are not going to pay their rents this quarter. The landlords, of course, will have no recourse to the courts until 91 days after the "invoices" fell due. Leaving corporations providing accomodation services to government themselves short of cash for the next three months at least.
Heaven alone knows what will happen if the retailers have as a bad a Christmas as has been predicted. Will there be any high street chains or shopping centres left by the beginning of the 2009/'10 financial year?

Is Margaret Beckett also now Minister for Caravans? And what made Brown choose
Baroness Ashton for Brussels rather than
Tony Blair or someone like Denis McShane?
Scared of the polling evidence produced by
Baroness Ashton's husband Peter Kellner
if there had to be a by-election anywhere?

In recent weeks we have heard numerous economists business leaders and politicians pointing the fingers of blame for the current global meltdown at those people who over extending on mortgages, misleading people to jump on the property band wagon and doing just about anything to circumvent the regulations?

When Peter Mandelson took filled out the form for a mortgage with the Britannia Building Society to buy a property in notting hill, he conveniently failed to disclose the small matter of a £373000 loan from his friend. Eventually he was rightly required to resign.

Now it seems that peter is the very man we need to restore confidence in our financial industry and to bring in all the necessary regulations to protect the public. Just the man to enforce strict rules and ignore the requests for light touch regulation made by those who sucked out so much profit.

This is politics at its worst, ennobling this man shows Gordon Brown has lost all sense of direction, returning to blairite ‘jobs for the boys’ politics and moving further away from working class, man on the street, socialism that may have given him his only hope at the next election.

Its a tad trite when Nazi apologists, and suspected enthusiasts, start trying to use freedom of speech and abuses of power to cover their tracks and intent.

I think the Austrians were right to penalize the alleged historian Irving. I don't think he should have gone to jail for so long a fine and caution of jail for second offences would have been fine.

The point is its lies and they know it.

Irving failed to prove his case in court so he had his say.

As for the police they know they are not allowed to join the BNP (Searchlight on their web site reveal the nazi and terrorist links of the BNP leadership ). Therefore I don't think the sack was enough.

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Nick Robinson asked Brown at the Number 10 News Conference if they
are effectively setting up a 'wartime'
economic Cabinet/planning system?

Perhaps Brown has been watching
Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food? But
there also used to be a system of
Neddies and Little Neddies under
Harold Wilson which sound a little
more like what is being proposed.

Gannex macs all round?

With the reshuffle I am surprised that Flint is going to the Foreign Office. She seems to have a belligerent personality and be utterly unsuited. Perhaps its a balance that with Ruth Kelly leaving politics (a profound love of the party machine?) there is no clear future female leadership candidate. Harman looks unlikely to progress in my world.

David Miliband stays put. Does that say anything other than Labour have no other talent that could handle a banana so well despite his inferred criticisms of Brown?

I fear for the Foreign Office.

Mandelson will be able to provide valuable experience in the field of mortgage fraud.

We were told of 'a government of all the talents'.

But to be fair, no one specified what those 'talents' might be.

I am sure Mr. Mandelson's record speaks for itself.

That said, how it is heard inside a certain village is one thing; and how throughout the rest of the country quite another.

Darn that cursed democratic voting thingie, eh?

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MORE THAN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

thegangofone (#15) "Irving failed to prove his case in court so he had his say."

You do appreciate that it was a LIBEL case brought BY Iriving against Lipstadt for what she had written about him? Essentially, he lost his case against her because he is (as she wrote), a holocaust denier, and he is indeed, sympathetic to National Socialism. But neither of these are criminal offences in the UK. [Abusing, discriminating against, threatening or physically harming an individual simply because they belong to a particular racial group can not be justified, and is under certain circumstances, rightly an offence].

The courts are not the place where facts of history are to be decided, and it remains the case that there are still certain demographic anomalies which are still to be explained. Aside from that, people should be concerned when one type of politics is censured if, by that very act, its opposite is thus advantaged. As I've said before, my primary concern is that we are, today, witnessing the of this through recently Liberal-Democracies which are now too biased towards or .

The US were put in place in the early 1930s in the wake of the 1929 crash. Look carefully into who lobbied to have some of those regulations lifted, and look at the consequences.

Pos(t)er #15 wears blinkers by reading only one bias source for his constant rant.

I suggest that he, and others of his ilk, should now read also current websites of BNP and Migrationwatch for a balanced view on the specific issue he mentioned, and the more general issue of the damage done to these small islands by years of massive uncontrolled immigration. These are two of the organisations that have never waivered in their warnings, which at this late hour are at last being heeded.

As Sir Andrew Green states, the 'good' news is that 'Balanced Migration' is now being accepted by voters from most political parties, the implementation of which will 'stabilise' the population of UK at 65 million by mid-century, as opposed to the 78.5 million now proposed.

Fortunately, I will not be around to experience even that amount of crowding, and am grateful to have been born in an era where Great Britain had less than 50 million (mainly English-speaking and English dressing) souls who were not 'in-your-face with alien, non-integrated ways.

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